It is surprising what happens when you make commitments to strangers who will hold you accountable. The word I’m looking for is pressure. You feel a certain pressure, an obligation. I’ve somehow managed to overlook all self-imposed writing obligations in the past, which is why I’m able to see that this is somehow different. There is movement. Forward motion. Words are getting onto paper. Story ideas are resurfacing. I am turning down chances to shop for shoes so that I may write. I raced home from a social engagement so I could map out an idea not for the book I’m working on now, but for the one after that. What is happening to me?
It is the blog. It is the possibility that someone may find me a fraud for lamenting my lack of writing and then doing nothing to fix it. It is the chance that someone out there, possibly a writer themselves, will stop reading the blog once they see I’m just fooling around. Whining a bit for show.
I am full of heavy things to say but this will have to suffice (at least now, still in the ripe flush of my writing glow): it is astonishing how many things snap into place when you are doing what you are meant to be doing. I rescind my cry of “not enough bars” from last week. When you are doing what you love – and what you have promised strangers you will do – you can unearth extra energy bars just about anywhere.
Insights on Swink, nano and the art show that didn’t happen (I was writing!) in the coming days.
